Miyamoto on the durability of Mario, says technology will influence the franchise’s future
Mario is here to stay. As Nintendo’s biggest franchise – and one of the biggest in general – there are plenty of additional adventures in store for the future. Shigeru Miyamoto is unsure about where Mario will be taken down the road, though technology will play an important role.
Miyamoto was asked about where he sees the future of Mario going during the Super Mario Run event at the Apple Store a few days ago. He reflected on a poll conducted after Super Mario Bros. launched, and how Mario was more popular than Mickey Mouse. Miyamoto realized at the time that “Mickey Mouse was a character that had evolved with the evolution of cinema and animation, and so it was then when I felt that if I want Mario to continue to survive as a character, then Mario needs to evolve with technology and video games.” And so Mario’s future will depend on the technology Miyamoto stumbles upon in the future.
Miyamoto’s full comments:
“It’s impossible to know the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen in five years; I don’t even know if I’ll be alive in five years! -Laughs- But I’m fine; I’m fine.
“There was a point just a few years after we released Super Mario Bros. where somebody had done a character popularity poll, and Mario had become more popular at the time than Mickey Mouse. And people said, ‘Well, how do you feel about that?’ To that I replied, ‘But Mickey Mouse has been around for 40 years; Mario has only been around for three!’ And that was when I started to think that maybe what I should do is worry about what is happening with Mario 40 years from now, and then we’ll see how he’s doing against Mickey at that point in time.
“At that time, I realized that Mickey Mouse was a character that had evolved with the evolution of cinema and animation, and so it was then when I felt that if I want Mario to continue to survive as a character, then Mario needs to evolve with technology and video games.
“That’s why when we were making Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64; that’s why it was such a fun project for me. And it’s why when we made Super Mario Maker – and all of you could then become Mario game designers – that was a fun project for me as well.
“As far as what’s going to happen in five years, it really depends on what new technology I come across, and then at that point in time I’ll partner that technology with Mario – or maybe Link – and create something new.”
